


An Act of Kindness

by Sheeana



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Collection: Purimgifts Day 1, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-20
Updated: 2013-02-20
Packaged: 2017-11-29 22:08:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/692021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheeana/pseuds/Sheeana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik raised his hand to send the missiles out over the water, the sound of magnetic metal humming in his ears. Then he remembered something. And then the world changed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	An Act of Kindness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [failsafe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/failsafe/gifts).



> Your gift fics all fit into a general theme of "joy after grief." I hope you like them! The graphics are not really related to the fics, even though I tried to use the same characters. I hope you like them, too! Please feel free to post them wherever you like.

Erik's mother once told him that granting forgiveness was a profound act of kindness.

She told him a lot of things, when he was just a boy. She told him that she was always going to be with him, that he was hers and she was his, that no force in the world could tear them apart. She patted his cheek and kissed his hair and taught him how to sing, and he drank in every word as he drank in the feeling of the metal rods through the newer buildings forming the framework of support that kept them from falling down. He learned every lesson his mother taught, and he taught himself to sense the invisible forces as he once must have taught himself to understand sight and sound.

Then he forgot about kindness.

*

This was it. This was the moment that would change everything. No more hiding. Erik raised his hand to send the missiles out over the water, the sound and feel of magnetic metal humming in his ears, flowing in his blood, spinning around his body. It was between every atom within and outside him; it was him, and he was it, and he could do anything. Magnetically-charged grains of sand clung to his boots. The smoldering metal wrecks of the submarine and the plane buzzed in the background.

Somewhere in the far reaches of his consciousness, he registered the physical sound of someone's voice shouting his name.

_Erik. Please, Erik. Listen to me, Erik._

 _Sing with me, Erik._

He remembered something. And then the world changed. 

*

The glass was cold against Erik's fingertips. Windows were spaces of deadened sense for him. He could touch the glass, see it, rap his knuckles against it and hear it, but it held no significant charge. He couldn't feel it. Yet somewhere beneath his feet, a cupboard filled with pots and pans sang to him. A shed full of rusty bicycles on the grounds hummed with potential energy. He lived in a world suited to his senses. 

"Come to bed, Erik. It's nearly three," Charles said, complaining from beneath his pillow. Erik allowed the ghost of a smile to come to his lips.

"Were you reading my mind?" he asked mildly, as he slid between the sheets. He'd learned not too long ago that his body fit perfectly alongside Charles' body, if he cared to arrange himself properly. Since they returned to the school together, he often cared to see things were done properly.

"You give me so little credit, my friend. I've no need to read your mind tonight. I can see what you're thinking." Yet even as Charles murmured to him in the warm darkness of their shared bed, Erik felt the characteristic hum of Charles' power interacting with his own, the low buzz of electromagnetic activity that went unperceived by the vast majority of people in the world. Not too long ago, he would have reacted with anger, with rage not tempered with Charles' serenity. 

Now, he had no more room in his soul for anger. Now he remembered.

Forgiveness, it turned out, was a thing earned as well as a thing given.

 

* * *

 

 


End file.
